Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2010 Sep 10;584(17):3773-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2010.06.016. Epub 2010 Jun 19.

Defending the end zone: studying the players involved in protecting chromosome ends

Suzanne S Chan  1 , Sandy Chang
Affiliations
Review

Defending the end zone: studying the players involved in protecting chromosome ends

Suzanne S Chan et al. FEBS Lett. .

Abstract

The linear nature of eukaryotic chromosomes leaves natural DNA ends susceptible to triggering DNA damage responses. Telomeres are specialized nucleoprotein structures that comprise the "end zone" of chromosomes. Besides having specialized sequences and structures, there are six resident proteins at telomeres that play prominent roles in protecting chromosome ends. In this review, we discuss this team of proteins, termed shelterin, and how it is involved in regulating DNA damage signaling, repair and replication at telomeres.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Shelterin: defender of the end zone
Shelterin is composed of six players: TRF1, TRF2, TIN2, RAP1, TPP1 and POT1. TRF1 is a negative regulator of telomere length and is required to prevent replication fork stalling at telomeres. TRF2-RAP1 protects telomeres from engaging in an ATM-dependent DNA damage response (DDR), while TPP1-POT1 binds to the single-stranded overhang to protect telomeres from activating an ATR-dependent DDR. Inappropriate activation of repair pathways at telomeres results in chromosome fusions and genome instability. TPP1-POT1 also regulates telomerase access to telomeres to influence telomere length.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Khanna KK, Jackson SP. DNA double-strand breaks: signaling repair and the cancer connection. Nat Genet. 2001;27(3):247–254. - PubMed
    1. Zakian VA. The ends have arrived. Cell. 2009;139(6):1038–1040. - PMC - PubMed
    1. de Lange T. How telomeres solve the end-protection problem. Science. 2009;326(5955):948–952. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Griffith JD, et al. Mammalian telomeres end in a large duplex loop. Cell. 1999;97(4):503–514. - PubMed
    1. de Lange T. Shelterin:the protein complex that shapes and safeguards human telomeres. Genes Dev. 2005;19(18):2100–2110. - PubMed

MeSH terms